Just use the code JUNE25 at checkout. Note: Paste this code into the coupon
box on the last page of checkout - Do not forget to hit the APPLY
button or the discount will not take.

Important
- If you want to buy more than one book, my shopping cart cannot handle
coupons on multiple purchases. So if you want to buy more than one product
- you need to buy them one at a time. If you put multiple items in your
cart, the coupon will only apply to the last item entered.

Please Note: This offer cannot be combined with any other coupon offers.

Be Careful Sourcing Name Brand Products.

I was going over my email today when I got an email from a liquidation
company I work with. Part of the email said: "Brand-New, Brand-Name
Products with Great Margins to Sell on Amazon, eBay, and More!"

Sounds pretty appealing, right? Don't forget the
Restricted Brands list
on Amazon. The problem dealing with liquidators is, you cannot always see
the list of brands in a lot. What if you spend $500 on a lot and when you
get it, the lot contains mostly shoes by Michael Kors and clothing items by
Burberry (Both of those are on the Restricted list).

If you are thinking, "That is OK, I can sell them on eBay," think again.
Most companies on Amazon's Restricted list, will also file VeRO
(Intellectual property) Complaints if you list on eBay
(See the 4th article in this issue for more on this subject).

Top 10 Sellers Market Share: In the Sellers tab, users can now see
how much of the overall market for a product is controlled by its
top ten sellers.

Inventory Ideas [Beta]: Inventory Ideas, a way to do a quick
competitor research on a lot of competitors and their products all
at once, and all in the same sortable list.

Saved Searches 2.0: Our Saved Searches and Value Track tools have
been merged into an updated Saved Searches 2.0 tool that offers new
features and an improved workflow.

Although
Terapeak
does have some Amazon features, it is mostly eBay centric. But it is easily
the best research tool on the market.

Amazon now requires all Amazon-registered brands to be trademarked and
registered with the USPTO (US Patent Trademark Office). If you recall, a
while ago I wrote an article on Branding your private label products. At
the time, I explained there were two types of brands; Formal and
Informal.

A formal brand is one where you trademark™ your brand, and
once you receive a trademark, you register the brand with the US Patent and
Trademark office (USPTO.gov) and you can now us the ® symbol.

An informal brand is where you make up a brand name and apply it
to your product. It might surprise you that this is entirely legal -it is
done by hundreds of sellers on eBay and Amazon.

What is the difference? The main difference is intellectual property
protection. If your brand name is trademarked and registered, you can sue
someone for using it. If you take the next step and register your brand
with the USPTO, anyone who abuses or infringes, could also be exposed to
Criminal penalties.

In the past, Amazon would allow you to register either a formal or an
informal brand as the brand holder on Amazon. However, that has changed.

One of my readers alerted me to this last week which was a good thing, as
the new policy change was done with almost no publicity on Amazon.

The new policy states that a brand must be trademarked -and registered in
order to become a registered brand on Amazon. Here is what the new policy
says:

"At this time, in order for any brand to be considered eligible for our new
Brand Registry program, the Trademark for that brand must be registered.
Any Trademark that is still listed as Pending will not be eligible for
enrollment. We currently accept Principal trademarks which are listed as
LIVE/REGISTRATION/Issued and Active on the USPTO, with mark drawing types
of STANDARD CHARACTER MARK or TYPESET WORD(S)/LETTER(S)/NUMBER(S)."

So if you want the seller protection that comes with registering your brand
on Amazon, then you will need to invest about $1000 in fees to trademark
and register the brand. You can still sell on eBay and Amazon using
informal brands, but you can no longer register as the brand holder on
Amazon.

Amazon has recently restricted the services of many refund companies (these
are companies who monitor your Amazon account and make refund requests on
your behalf that Amazon should have given you).

Amazon now prohibits FBA sellers from using third-party services to submit
reimbursement requests on their behalf. The key words in that sentence are
"on their behalf." One of the largest refund companies,
Refunds Manager (the
one I use), had this to say about the new policy.

This is from Nathan, their founder and owner:

We want to assure you that our service is fully in line with Amazon's TOS.
Because we manually review all errors and manually submit all cases.
Refunds Manager is not an automated service, but a
business service that utilizes software in the initial stages of its
process.

Here are all the key ways that Refunds Manager stays compliant with
Amazon's TOS:

Manual review

Manual case submittal

Wait period for Amazon to reimburse

We comply with all TOS. This was a mass email from Amazon. None of our
cases have been closed. Business has been going as usual. You can ignore
this.

Apparently, Nate is correct because they just opened two cases for me
earlier this week. They both went through and I received refunds.

Last Week Amazonís stock price hit $1,000 for the first time, closing the week
at $1,006.00. Amazon has also announced a few new areas it will be selling in.
Here is an article
from Forbes Magazine that summarizes the changes and their impact on the platform.

Last month I updated my book about selling used items online. Yes, I said used
items. Did you know that you can make more money selling used goods than selling new items?
The Virtual Peddler
shows you how to make a living buying, selling and trading used items
online. If you've already bought this book, go to the download page and get
the newest version.

I am sorry this article is so long and complex, but unfortunately, this is
a complex subject -And, very important to your selling future, so I suggest
you plow through it.

Starting last April (April 1, 2017), Amazon started collecting sales taxes
from all 45 States that charge sales tax. Note - Amazon is adding sales tax
to all sales in those 45 states, but is not filing and
paying the sales tax to the states, except on their own sales of
merchandise.

Amazon will only send the taxes it collects to you -it will not file them
with the states for you. And, Amazon will only do this if you set up sales
tax collection in Seller Central, agree to payment and tell them in which
states, and what percentage to collect.

The key points to take away from this are:

Amazon will collect the tax on your behalf and send it to you, if
you tell them to, but they will not file and pay
the taxes for you.

If you want Amazon to collect the taxes and send them to you, they
will charge you 2.9% of the taxes they collect

Until recently, you only needed to collect and pay sales tax on sales made,
and shipped to, someone in your own state. Over the past few years, almost
every state that has a sales tax, has instituted a Nexus policy on online
sales that are shipped to their state, no matter where the seller (you)
lives.

Although Nexus rules have been around for years, it's only recently that
States have been enforcing them on individual online sellers.

So, what is a Nexus?

For the purpose of sales tax, a nexus exists if a seller has a substantial
presence in a state. This used to be enforced on companies that had a
store, office or warehouse in a state.

But now, States have taken the position that Amazon FBA sellers have a
substantial presence in their state (Nexus), if they send inventory to an
Amazon Fulfillment Center (warehouse) in a state that claims this, which is
virtually every state.

To make it even worse, some states take the position that you owe sales tax
on all sales made from that state to anywhere in the country. A few states
(Sorry - I do not have a breakdown on this but will give you a resource
later) only demand that you collect and pay tax on sales made, and product
shipped, in the state where you have goods in an Amazon warehouse.

The first question this brings up is; "How do I know where Amazon stores my
goods?"

First log into Seller Central and then
go to this link
.
This will give you a good overview of Amazon's current tax policy. Next,
go to Reports>Fulfillment and select Daily Inventory History.
When you get to that page, select Last 30 days and then hit Generate Report. That will look like this:

When you generate the report Ė you will see your SKU number and Product Descriptions.
To the right of that (far right), you will see some columns that look like this:

The column marked "FC" is the Amazon code for the Fulfillment Center
(warehouse) where that product is located. I suggest you copy these into an
Excel Spread sheet so you can organize and sort.

I know those codes will not make sense to you, so I have provided a list of
the various fulfillment centers and the states they are located in
(copy/paste these into a document file, and then save and print out. Here
is the list of states and FC's:

List of fulfillment centers by state. The first three digits of a
fulfillment center's identification code are from the IATA airport code of
the closest large airport:

For reference, please log into Seller Central and see the
Help Page
for Amazon Fulfillment Centers in the United States.

Not every state has made filing, collecting and payment necessary - but many have.
Here is a booklet
from the sales tax service company Avalara. If you need help with your sales taxes,
you can check with them - or
TaxJar
(my preferred resource).

In case you haven't been paying attention, beginning June 30th,
all Amazon sellers will be required to set up two-step
verification whereby, when you log into Amazon, you will have to ask Amazon
to send you a code via Text Message that you have to enter before you can
log in to your account.. That's right - text message!

What happens is, when you first log in with your email address, within a
minute or so, Amazon will text you a code that you must enter to complete
the sign-on. Those are the "two-steps," Amazon is referring to

The adverse PR this move has cost Amazon appears to be of no consequence,
because it only involves sellers, whom they don't seem to care that much
about. If buyers were going crazy, they might do something. (Note: Buyers
have been given the opportunity to set up two step verification, but so
far, Amazon has not made it mandatory.

This means you must have a smart phone that is capable of receiving text
messages. If you don't have one of these - Amazon doesn't care. In my
correspondence with Amazon they told me I could disable 2-step verification
after June 30th, but I would need a smart phone both to set it
up and to disable it.

Amazon's suggestion for using 2-step verification was to "borrow" a smart
phone from a friend. I have visions of friends of Amazon sellers getting
phone calls at Two O'clock in the morning asking them to look at their
phone and tell them the code. Also, what happens if you are in an area like
I am. I have high-speed internet over cable, but cell phone service in our
location is weak and spotty.

So, bottom line, unless Amazon changes their policy at the last minute
(which I doubt), all sellers will have to buy or borrow a smart-phone
before June 30th.

Of course we all know this new system will work flawlessly with no glitches
- right? I have visions of hundreds of sellers not being able to access
2-step verification during the first week of the new system going into
place.

Don't get me wrong -I do support Amazon's goal of increased security -and
wished more online companies were more interested in keeping our
information protected. But, this is one of those times where the doctor
cured the disease, but the patient died anyway.

If you want information about two-step verification for sellers, first log
into Seller Central and use
this link.

If you want instructions on how to disable 2-step verification, then use
this link.

Remember, you must wait until after June 30th to disable it.

About the only other suggestion I can give you if you don't like this
policy, is open a support ticket with Seller Support Asking for
clarification -and stating your concerns. If they get enough sellers
complaining -there is always a slight chance they will listen -and try to
come up with a better method.

eCommerce business venues such as eBay, Amazon, Etsy and others require
sellers to weigh products for shipment to customers -and in the case of
Amazon, for shipment to Amazon's Fulfillment Centers. Let's look at the
requirements and important features you want to look for in a scale:

Cost - Good Digital Scales can vary in price from as low as $12 to
over $100. At about $25 to $50, the features and quality seems to
be good enough for your needs

Weight range - If you are going to use just one scale for postage
and UPS or FedEx shipping, then the range of weights it can measure
should vary from a low of 1/10th of an ounce up to the
30 to 40-pound range.

If you also ship light bulk freight, then you will also want a
separate scale that goes from about 25-pounds up to as high as 400
pounds. For larger weights than that, you will want to find a local
drive-on - drive-off scale you can use or rent from time to time.

Tare adjustment - Tare is a term that means an adjustment made for
the weight of the packaging in order to determine the net weight of
the goods. For example, if you have items that are shipped in a
container, and you only want to know the weight of the items
without the container, then you would place the empty container on
the scale, and hit the Tare button. That tells the scale how much
the box or container weighs. Now, place the box or container on the
scale with the products in it, and the scale will give you the
weight of the contents only.

If you want to know the shipping weight, just put the shipping box
with the contents plus any packing material on the scale and it
will give you the total weight for shipping.

The extended cord with display on the end is important for when you place
large boxes on the scale, you can pull the cord out so you can see the
display.

How to get a free scale?

For a long time, I have been recommending the services of
Stamps.com.
If you
click on this link,
my readers can get a free 4-week trial. However, after giving the service
a free trial, if you decide to sigh up for the monthly service, Stamps.com
will give you a $100 worth of the following goodies:

$5 Free Postage ~ Your Stamps.com account will automatically be credited with $5 free postage to use during your trial.

Digital USB Scale ($50 value) ~ As a new Stamps.com customer you will receive a FREE 5 lb. Digital Scale.
The scale is a $50 value and is yours to keep with no additional
obligation. Just pay for shipping and handling (typically $9.99 or less).

More free postage ($40 worth) ~ You will receive four coupons each good for $10 free postage, which are
redeemable after the trial period ($10 free postage per month for
four months).

Last piece of advice: A good scale will cost anywhere from $20 to $50. This
is not a huge investment, but one that you will use for a long time -so
take your time, look at all the features and shop carefully

Before we get started, let's define arbitrage for anyone who is
unfamiliar with that term and the ensuing business practice on eBay and
Amazon.

The formal definition of Arbitrage is "the practice of taking advantage of
a price difference between two or more markets and capitalizing on the
imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices."

Retail and Online arbitrage are essentially the same thing. You buy low in
one market to sell higher in another market.

For our purposes, there are two kinds of Arbitrage used by eBay and Amazon
sellers - Retail and Online. Let's look at both:

Retail Arbitrage
is when an eBay or Amazon seller finds an item on clearance at a
store (Target, Toys-R-Us, Wal-Mart, Home Depot or even small local
stores) at a substantially lower price than the same product is
selling for on eBay and/or Amazon. The seller buys the item in the
store and sells it on eBay or Amazon at a higher price.

Online Arbitrage
is the same thing, except the seller is finding and buying the
items from various online sites (Toys-R-Us.com, etc.). This
includes finding items selling on eBay lower than they are selling
on Amazon and vice versa.

If you look at my article on
Restricted Brands at Amazon,
you will see many familiar brand names. This brings us to a few problems
with Arbitrage:

Sellers may buy products and when they go to list them, they find
out the brands are restricted and they are now stuck with the
products.

The same companies that restrict their brands on Amazon,
participate in eBay's VeRO (Verified Rights Owner) program. VeRO
allows the owners of intellectual property rights and their
authorized representatives to report listings that may infringe on
those rights.

Prices can change pretty quickly. Remember, the practice of retail
and online arbitrage is being done by a large number of sellers. If
a lot of sellers buy the same products you are buying, it will
start a competition and prices could fall quite rapidly.

If we go back to the original question: "Does Retail Arbitrage and Online
Arbitrage Have a Future?" sadly, the answer may be no.
eBay and Amazon are customer-driven companies, and customers have proven
they want name brand products. This gives the brands the ultimate power.
Essentially, eBay and Amazon will go along with anything the brands want as
long as it's legal.

It's a fact that major name brand products control the distribution of
their products very tightly. When you buy a product from a store for
resale, you are not buying from an authorized distributor.

This means the brand owner has no control over how, and at what price,
their products are being sold. So they register their brand with Amazon as
a restricted brand and with eBay's VeRO program. Then when someone like you
lists one of their brand name products online, they file a complaint if you
are not one of their authorized resellers.

A lot of sellers think they can rely on the First Sale Doctrine.
The First Sale Doctrine says that once you buy something, you have
the rights to resell it in the secondary market

The problem is, Amazon and the brands are taking actions to block you from
re-selling their goods as new on online selling sites. You could
probably win a lawsuit if you fought the issue, but it would cost you
upwards of $20,000 in legal and court fees just to file the suit -and then
another $100,000 to $250,000 to pursue it.

Note: You can sell these brand name goods as used without any problems -in
fact that is what a lot of sellers do.

Given all these issues it is my opinion that the future of retail and
online arbitrage is limited. So, those of you who are practicing it may
want to give some thought to finding a new business strategy.

New Wholesale DVDs
is a DVD liquidator that specializes in selling below normal wholesale to
resellers. Low Minimum quantity. Credit cards and PayPal accepted. Large
selection of exercise and workout DVDs and videos. New items arriving
weekly.

Please Note:
Some of the products and
services mentioned in this website, in articles, banner ads and
newsletters and blog posts are for products and services for which I
earn a referral fee or commission. We always evaluate anything we
recommend very carefully and each year we turn down literally dozens
of opportunities to recommend products or services where we can earn
a commission. Even though we earn a fee on some of our
recommendations, we only recommend products and services that we
feel will deliver good value and with rare exceptions, they all come
with a money back guarantee.